


The Last Enemy

by iamfitzwilliamdarcy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, James and Lily are present in absence if that counts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 00:38:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16482770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamfitzwilliamdarcy/pseuds/iamfitzwilliamdarcy
Summary: Before gathering members of the Order, Remus and Sirius pay a visit to Godric’s Hollow and the friends they’ve left behind. Set at the very end of GoF





	The Last Enemy

**Author's Note:**

> I got...really tired of fighting with this (for months and months!) and I wanted it posted on the anniversary of James and Lily’s death so....here. Also, as Edmund Pevensie once wisely noted, “that’s the worst with girls...they can never carry a map in their heads,” and so Godric’s Hollow is just...whatever I want it to be. Also what does Sirius believe about the afterlife? I sure would like to know. (This has also not been proofread I wish I were sorrier about that)

The moon is still only just waning when Sirius arrives on Remus’ doorstep. He’s holed up in run-down cottage on the outskirts of a little town by the sea in Cornwall; a little old lady sympathetic to his condition (or whatever condition Remus has told her he has) hired him on as a gardener, and he’s made it last longer than most jobs he’s had recently. He looks ragged, now, but his eyes are intense when he lets Sirius in.

He hadn’t seemed exactly surprised when Sirius had called him on the two-way mirror, salvaged by Dumbledore through whatever illicit means Sirius hadn’t bothered to ask, and told him he was coming. That it was time to raise up the Order again. They’d been in contact throughout the year, and it had only been a matter of time.

“Harry?” Remus asks, setting a hot cup of tea before Sirius.

It’s abnormally cold for late June, and the wind blows off the sea, buffeting the cottage, breaking through its cracks.

Sirius takes a sip, warming himself, thinks for a moment, and settles on, “Safe.”

Remus watches him. After a moment and a few more sips, Sirius adds, “Shaken, definitely. It was not…” he breaks off and shakes his head, looks up to meet Remus’ eyes, and then fills him in on the details.

When he’s finished, Remus’ face is taut, his eyes thoughtful. “So the Order,” he says.

“Getting the old crowd together again,” Sirius confirms. Adds, “Not that there are many of us left.”

“Where will we meet?” Remus wants to know.

Sirius’ grip on his mug tightens. “Dumbledore and I have been talking about that,” he says. “My parents—” Remus immediately straightens at the mention of the Blacks and Sirius pointedly does not look at him, “Their house should be mine,” he finishes.

“Should be?”

“Last Black male heir.” Sirius shrugs, nonchalant, like it doesn’t mean anything. “We should probably…verify that. Before we start gathering people up. And recruiting. Guess that should be our game plan.”

“I can’t just drop—” Remus starts, and Sirius jerks his head up.

“You’ve known this was coming,” he snaps, leaning his chair onto its back legs. “Your job—”

“Is the most stable one I’ve had in  years, Hogwarts withstanding, and—”

“And how long before you quit or fuck it up or—”

“What’s that mean,” Remus cuts in, his voice icy.

Sirius lets his chair slam down. “When have you ever let yourself have nice things?” he demands. “You bounce from shitty job to shitty job, letting people take advantage of you because you don’t think you deserve better—”

Remus opens his mouth and Sirius raises his voice. “—Leaving on some trite notion that it’s for everyone’s safety, including your own. You let Snape,  _ Snivellus Snape _ , of all people push you out of Hogwarts—”

“I seem to recall,” Remus manages to break in, “that there were certain circumstances involving a mass murderer breaking out of Azkaban and kidnapping my students involved in that scenario.”

“So you let Snape use you to get back at me,” Sirius says, but they’ve both deflated a bit.

Sirius hooks his leg around the leg of his chair. “It’ll be like old times,” he needles.

Remus sighs and sits back down. Says, “I don’t want it to end like old times.”

“No,” Sirius agrees.    
  
It’s a moment before Remus sighs again, shakes his head, and says, “Alright, of course,” as Sirius had known he would. “We’ll go to London tomorrow.”   
  
Abruptly, Remus gets up again and disappears into the kitchen. He returns with a mostly full bottle of fire whisky and two chipped glasses.    
  
He pours out two double shots, perfectly measured by eye, and pushes one across the table to Sirius.    
  
Sirius raises an eyebrow, amused. “What are drinking to?”   
  
“Friends,” Remus shrugs. “The Order. Fighting the good fight.”   
  
“Hear, hear,” Sirius says, and they clink glasses.    
  
Sirius takes the bottle and pours them both another. “To stable unemployment,” he says, raising his glass.    
  
Remus actually laughs. “Guess I’m drinking to that,” he says.    
  
Sirius hasn’t had alcohol in nearly 14 years, and Remus has always been a bit of a lightweight, and each pour is getting progressively heavier. By the time the second drink settles, warm in stomach, he’s feeling a buzz. It’s pleasant, despite the chill outside seeping in and the circumstances leading up to this.    
  
Across from him, Remus’ face is flushed but he pours them another. “To us,” he says. “Still standing.”   
  
Sirius pours one more. “To James,” he says, his voice catching.    
  
“To Prongs,” Remus echoes solemnly. 

They drink and clunk their glasses down. Remus’ eyes look droopy, and Sirius remembers they’re only a few days past full moon. He must be exhausted, and the stress of Voldemort’s return, Sirius showing up on his doorstep, reinstating the Order all combine with the alcohol to hit Remus hard. 

“C’mon,” Sirius says, standing up. The room tilts a little, and he stumbles. Laughs because it’s been a long time since they’ve been wasted together. He’s not so bad off he can’t walk, though, and he tugs on Remus. “Let’s get you to bed.” 

Remus lets Sirius help him to bed and take his shoes off. Mumbles something about an extra blanket hanging over the couch and what sounds like an apology that Sirius ignores as he pulls Remus’ threadbare covers up over him. He hits the lights, collapses on the couch himself, and doesn’t wake up until the sun rises. 

 

**********************

 

Remus is already awake, nursing a mug of coffee, looking a little worse for wear. “More on the stove,” he nods towards the kitchen. “Merlin, I’m too old for that,” he adds. 

Sirius laughs on his way to pour himself his own mug. His head hurts, but as far as hangovers go, he’s had worse. He brings water over for both of them, but once he’s settled in the same chair from the night before, he can tell Remus wants to talk.

Remus does not disappoint. “Before we leave,” he says, slowly, not meeting Sirius’ eye. “I want to go to Godric’s Hollow. We’re not far,” he adds hastily, glancing up when Sirius sucks in his breath. “And I think it’d be right. To start this off by visiting.” 

Sirius takes a moment and examines Remus’ lined face, the bags under his eyes, the determined set to his mouth. He nods. “I never--,” he starts.

“I know,” Remus says. “I haven’t since…”

“To James, huh?” Sirius says into the quiet. 

“To Prongs,” Remus echoes.

 

**********************

 

The late afternoon sun has burnt up the mist of the morning, and Padfoot bounds along next to Remus up the trail. They plan to visit the graveyard at nightfall, when the townspeople have long gone to bed. Remus is looking for the nearby inn, where he hopes to find some food and a room that’ll accommodate a dog. Sirius had said it’d be easy to sneak past a Muggle while human, but Remus reminded him he was wanted even in the Muggle world and had insisted on Sirius remaining Padfoot while in town. Sirius has grumbled at first, but now he seemed positively euphoric, bounding after pigeons, barking, and trotting happily next to Remus. 

“How,” Remus mutters through a yawn, “do you have so much energy?” 

Padfoot barks, which Remus correctly interprets as mocking him for struggling with a hangover two days post drinking. 

“We’re old now, remember,” Remus says, hand resting affectionately on Padfoot’s head, though he gives his ear a little twinge. “Can’t recover like we used to.”  

Padfoot barks again, and Remus flicks his head. “I could too hang back then,” he says. Padfoot grins up at him, clearly laughing, and Remus shakes his head. 

“I’ll leave you out in the cold,” he warns. 

But Padfoot isn’t listening. He sits down abruptly, tail thumping as it wags, and whines a little. Remus follows the dog’s look to a small group of children approaching cautiously. 

“Hey Mister!” one says bravely, having been jostled to the front of the group. “Can we pet your dog?”

Remus catches Padfoot’s eye, and he whines again, tail thumping harder.

“Sure,” Remus says. “Just be gentle.”

Suddenly empowered by their permission, the group streams forward, showering Padfoot in pats, “Good boys,” and even some kisses. Remus watches carefully, but Padfoot seems happy. Remus frowns,and it occurs to him to wonder just how much human contact Sirius has had in the past year. 

In the past fourteen years. 

(There’s a stab of guilt at letting him languish in Azkaban so long.)

As the kids disperse, he gets directions towards the Inn. Night is falling, and the people on the streets begin to disperse. No one takes notice of a shabby man and is dog. They make it, finally, and Remus, after much negotiation and a not quite small amount of gold Sirius had shoved in his pocket earlier, he and his dog have a room. 

Sirius transforms back and flops down on one of the double beds as Remus set their bags down. 

“I could get used to a real bed again,” Sirius sighed, closing his eyes and flinging a hand over his head. 

“Sorry you had only the couch last night,” Remus says, for the umpteenth time, flushing. If he’d been sober, he’d have insisted Sirius take the bed. 

Sirius, for his part, just waves his free hand impatiently in the air. “Told you already not to worry about it,” he yawns, sound far less annoyed than he had the last several times he’d told Remus this. “Vast improvement over a cave floor.”

And Remus thought he’d been living badly. He shifts uncomfortably, supposing he’d take his squalor over living as a fugitive, and then says, “I’ll go out and grab us some food.” 

Still using his free hand, Sirius gestures over to he’s tossed his bag of gold, somehow obtained out of Gringotts, onto the nightstand between beds. Remus hesitates, but pockets it, his face still warm from embarrassment. 

“It’s my food too,” Sirius calls after him, as if he can sense how uncomfortable Remus is accepting the money. 

“Don’t expect a feast,” Remus calls back, but he relaxes a little.

He returns with dinner some thirty minutes later, and Sirius is leaning out of the window, a cigarette dangling from his fingers. It’s a familiar sight, one Remus had walked into many times while they were still at school or in the years after at Sirius’ own apartment. 

“You’re not supposed to smoke in here,” Remus reminds him automatically

“Going to give me detention?” Sirius teases back, as if Remus were his prefect again. 

They have had the conversation before, but over a decade of separation and betrayal and James Potter stand between. It’s not the same. 

Remus smiles, though, and Sirius stubs the cigarette out. 

They discuss directions over dinner, but mostly eat in quiet. They eat in silence, though Sirius tears into his food with gusto. Remus eats his distractedly. It hangs over him what’s happened to Harry, what’s happening next. The weight of everything--of his friends’ deaths, betrayal, guilt, a decade of loneliness, the danger they were stepping back into--hung over his head. 

That James isn’t able to be here.

(James hangs between them…

The Absence of James…)

The sun begins to set, and Remus asks, “Ready?”

Sirius shrugs because it’s not something you’re ever ready for. 

“I got directions from the girl at the front desk,” Remus says. “On my way back in. It’s not a far walk. Maybe you should--,”

“No,” Sirius says firmly.

Remus presses his lips together. He almost crosses his arms, then sighs and relents. “Oh alright. But if we run into any trouble--,”

“Don’t borrow any,” Sirius interrupts airily. 

Remus wants to be annoyed, but Sirius is tensed and his tone just this side of too casual, for him to take Sirius to heart. 

They make their way, following the directions the girl provided. The path becomes familiar, and Remus senses Sirius’ steps falter. 

“We don’t have to go by the house.”

Sirius just shrugs, and they walk on, but he freezes when they get to the house. It looks like Remus remembers, except more run-down, a gaping hole in the corner. The yard’s grown wild, and the gate is long rusted. 

Sirius is still beside Remus. He reaches out and lets his hand touch the gate; it trembles, and he’s 20 again, his motorbike thrown haphazardly in the street, not sure what he’s going to see, only knows he doesn’t want to, that it’s his fault. The ground crunches under his feet, debris from the upper room blown apart, and Merlin  _ Merlin _ , this is bad, what had even  _ happened _ \--

He can’t breathe, his hand lingering behind him on the gate, but he forces himself forward, has to see- 

“ _ Sirius _ .” Remus is standing there, looking concerned. Sirius shakes his head. When had Remus gotten here? He can’t think, can’t breathe.

“Sirius,” Remus’ voice again, gentle but firm. “You’re not there. It’’s 1995.”

Sirius blinks, focuses in on him. “1995?” he repeats.

“1995,” he says, softly. “Not 1981. It’s 1995, and Harry needs us.”

“Harry,” Sirius grasps at the name like a lifeline, and it draws him back. The evening is a summer one, the air fairly balmy, and the house before him now is in ruins, the smoke long gone. It’s been nearly 14 years, and there’s nothing he can do. 

“We don’t have to go,” Remus says after a moment, but Sirius is himself again, and he says, “Come on,” in reply. 

The graveyard looms ahead of them. Remus, who had gone to the funeral, guides the way to the gravestones. He hasn’t been here since the funeral and reminds Sirius a couple times, when he pauses to get his bearings. But the graveyard isn’t big, and soon Remus comes to a stop in front the tombstone. 

The white marble is bright still, and cleared of weeds, even though no one’s left flowers in years, and their names stand out starkly.

_ James Potter and Lily Potter.  _

Back then, Remus had thought his world was ended. All his friends taken from him, in one fell swoop, and who besides his father, already burdened with too much, could have accepted him like they did? 

Somehow, he’d gone on, one day after another. He slid a glance over at Sirius, who was staring intently at the grave, his hands still trembling. He’d had to go on to, but...

Remus knows about dementors.

Sirius’s mouth is pressed thin, and Remus realizes he’s crying, tears streaming silently down his face, over his lips, dripping off his chin. Remus looks away, embarrassed, but he can feel the tightness in his own throat. 

“It’s different,” Sirius says after a long while. He clears his throat. “In Azkaban.” 

Remus waits because Sirius rarely mentions Azkaban. 

He shakes his head, like he can’t explain. Won’t explain. Sirius has always been highly emotional, dramatic, wild, but he’s never been very good at actually expressing himself. Remus has learned to manage him, a little, but James was always the one who  _ understood _ . 

“You relive it,” Sirius says, his voice gruff. “You relive it, but it’s not--it’s not  _ sad. _ ”

He drops to his knees, still graceful in that way he’s never managed to shake, and reaches out a hand to press against the tombstone. Remus half expects him to transform back into Padfoot, curl up at their grave, and never leave. 

“You never got to say good-bye,” Remus says softly, taking a step closer. He’s quiet for a moment, thinking of the right thing to say. Remus is always composed, even as grief threatens to overwhelm him.

“It’s not grieving,” he suggests, after a moment. “In Azkaban, with the dementors. It’s not--you’re not allowed  _ grief _ .”

Sirius looks up at him, almost surprised, his face gaunt, haunted. 

“Yeah,” he croaks. “Yeah.”

There’s no joke about Remus’ emotional intelligence, nothing about his mind reading or hypotheses--nothing to deflect. 

Sirius rocks back on his heels. “The last enemy,” he murmurs aloud. “I don’t get that.”

“It’s, y’know,” Remus gestures feebly. “The afterlife. That there’s more to life than death and more to death than....”

“Some dirt and maggots?” 

“Sure,” Remus says, grimacing, pointedly not noticing how even Sirius flinches away from the thought of decomposition happening to James and Lily, to the friends they loved. He’s trying to be flippant, and they both know it’s a weak effort. 

Sirius wipes at his eyes and stands. He’s not smiling, but there’s a note of teasing in his voice when flings his arms wide and adds, “Beyond the veil, eh, Moony? Think Prongs is here with us now?”

Remus steps up beside him, just as a cool night breeze, more autumn than summer, brushes past them. 

He doesn’t answer, but he pulls out his wand and conjures flowers, roses and lilies, and carnations, sunflowers and daisies, wild and bright just like they would have liked. Sirius watches places them just so on the grave marker. 

“To London?” Sirius says.

Remus nods, grim, ready again. “To London.”  


End file.
